This blog of mine focuses on Japanese cooking. I'm h_312_312 on Instagram and Hiro312 on cookpad.
私のこのブログでは、日本料理を扱います。インスタグラムではh_312_312、クックパッドではHiro312です。

June 26, 2017

Cultivating Buckwheat/そばの収穫

On April 21, my father sowed 1 kg of buckwheat seeds on a plot measuring 23 m x 8 m. On May 7, I helped my father put up a net over the plot as I described here. On June 24, when the "blackening ratio" of the buckwheat seeds reached 70-80%, my father and I cultivated the buckwheat.

I'm not quite sure, but my father says 80% of the buckwheat seeds are now black.

私自身ははっきり分かりませんが、父が言うには、そばの種の８割が黒くなっているそうです。

I did almost all the cropping manually with a sickle, while my father bundled the stems.

刈り取りは殆どすべて私が鎌を使って人力で行い、父が束にしました。

We put the bundles in the light truck (called "kei tora" for short), and carried them to the overhead grapevine trellis with a roof in front of the house.

軽トラック（軽トラ）に束を載せ、家の前の、屋根のあるぶどう棚まで運びました。

They are now hung to dry.

吊るして干しています。

It will take one week or so for them to dry. My father hopes to get 20 kg of buckwheat from the bundles.

乾くのに１週間ほどかかります。この束から蕎麦が20 kgくらい取れればいいなあと、父は言ってます。

Edited to add:

追記：

Due to the bad weather, the drying process is quite slow.

天気が悪くて、乾燥は遅れています。

I talked about the "blackening ratio". Cropping buckwheat when the blacking ratio is 70-80% is recommended because the seeds that are still white will turn black in the drying process. If you crop buckwheat when the ratio is almost 100%, you will lose a considerable amount of seeds while cropping.